


Gingerbread Lions

by caesia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:38:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesia/pseuds/caesia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime finds Cersei baking Christmas cookies, and it reminds him of their childhood, when everything seemed innocent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gingerbread Lions

Jaime closed his algebra book and pushed his chair away from his desk. He had three more problems to go, but his motivation to finish his assignments dwindled with every passing day as winter break crept ever closer. One of the advantages of a semester that didn’t end until January was a light workload leading up to the holiday season, but even so, he hadn’t dragged himself away from his computer to start his homework until long after dinner.

Then again, they’d eaten dinner unusually early. Cersei had ordered their cook to serve at six instead of seven-thirty, and she’d gotten away with it since their father was out of town, prosecuting a case in the capital. He’d be home the next evening, but for now Jaime’s twin was wringing every possible advantage out of being in charge. She’d relished Tywin’s instructions to the staff that she and Jaime were to be obeyed absolutely, and Jaime was happy to let her have her way with the running of the Lannister household as long as the maids left his room alone. 

He decided to grab a snack from the kitchen before finishing the rest of his work. Maybe he’d stop by Cersei’s room on the way back, too, and tease her about what she was getting him for Christmas. He’d hardly seen her after tennis practice except at dinner, and she’d rushed away as soon as their plates were cleared to attend to some project.

As he jogged down the stairs, Cersei’s preoccupation became obvious from the smell wafting through the first floor. Jaime stopped in surprise before slipping into the kitchen. “Cersei, what are you doing?”

His sister didn’t even turn her head to look at him. Using a small spatula, she was carefully transferring flat golden cookies from a baking sheet to a cooling rack set up along the marble countertop. “What does it look like? I’m baking.”

Jaime wandered further into the room to lean on the kitchen island as he watched Cersei work. Her blonde hair, so close in color to his own, was scraped back from her face into a long braid, which ended just above the knotted strings of her red apron. He’d never seen his sister look so domestic, though her fitted cream sweater and jodhpur leggings were still visible under her apron skirt. She’d pushed up her sleeves to roll out more dough, and Jaime admired how capably her elegant hands maneuvered the cookie cutter, pressing squat little men out of the long rectangle. Then he frowned.

“Mom always made gingerbread lions, not gingerbread men.” Their mother had loved lions. When she tucked them in at night, she used to call them her golden lion cubs, and tell them they would grow up to be the king and queen of the jungle.

Cersei set the cookie cutter on the counter with a bang. “Well, I’m not mom, so Tyrion’s going to have to make do with these. Dad had all of her personal baking stuff thrown out.”

“You’re baking them for Tyrion?” Even more surprising than Cersei exercising her domestic side was Cersei mothering their little brother.

“His class is having a Christmas party and everyone has to bring something.”

Jaime smirked. “They call them winter parties now, sis. Try to be politically correct. Why didn’t you just have the cook make something for him to take? Or buy something at the store?”

Cersei flicked her hair back contemptuously, a gesture made less effective since she’d forgotten it was in a braid. “You want me to send him to school with cookies in a cheap plastic box, frosted with artificial sugar? So they can all talk about the poor little motherless Lannister boy? He doesn’t need their pity, Jaime. And this is Mom’s recipe so it belongs to me, not the cook. I’m the one baking them.”

Privately, Jaime didn’t think Tyrion’s second grade class would care where the cookies came from, but he wasn’t about to argue with his sister in the middle of a tirade on Lannister pride. “I’ve never seen you bake anything before.”

Cersei finished filling the baking sheet with more cookies, lined up in a neat array like toy soldiers. “It reminds Dad too much of mom. If he were home, I’d be stuck with break-and-bake chocolate chip. We’ll have to make sure there aren’t any leftover cookies sitting around the house, or he’ll find them.”

“That sounds like something I can actually help with.” His sister returned his smirk as she bent to slide the tray in the oven. Jaime watched her with interest. After she set the timer, she brushed past him on the way to the refrigerator, where she grabbed the milk. Then she moved to a clean area of the counter and began unwrapping the packages of butter and cream cheese she’d left out to soften. Glancing over at the recipe card, she added the ingredients to a large mixing bowl and began to stir.

Jaime closed his eyes. The smell of baking gingerbread brought him back to a childhood with a mother who loved him and a sister whose thoughts he could read at a glance. They’d slept in adjoining bedrooms, though the door between them was never closed. Sometimes, Jaime remembered, he’d had trouble distinguishing where he ended and Cersei began. They’d introduced themselves to their classmates as one unit, JaimeandCersei, and they’d held hands on the playground and fed their lunches to each other. That was before their mother had moved their rooms to opposite ends of the second floor, and insisted to their father they be put in different classes, so they could practice making new friends. Her death had changed most things for the worse, but at least no one had tried to separate the golden twins for the rest of elementary school.

He drifted out of his memories and back into the present. The scent brought Cersei back, too, he thought. She was ignoring him, pretending to be engrossed with preparing the icing, a sure sign that she wanted his attention. Grinning, he pushed off the island and crossed the room to stand with his chest touching her back, placing his hands on the counter on either side of her waist.

“Does it remind you of when we were little, and we would sit on the countertop while Mom baked?”

He couldn’t see her face, but he knew she smiled. “She would give us spoons to lick and pretend we were helping.”

Jaime pressed even closer and leaned over her shoulder. Dodging her whisk, he dipped a finger in the pale icing and brought it to her lips. She sucked at it hungrily, trapping it in her mouth and licking until he groaned. Unconsciously, he ground against her, his hips mimicking the motion of her tongue. This was where they belonged, just the two of them doing normal things like baking and flirting, far from the expectations of their father and the curious, mismatched eyes of their younger brother. He loved the way they fit together, his cock cradled in the soft curve of her arse. He wrapped his other arm around her hand that held the mixing bowl and pulled her even closer, continuing to circle his hips. “Cersei…”

The kitchen timer beeped, breaking the moment. She twisted, shoving the bowl into his hands so she could attend to the oven. “Keep stirring that. There shouldn’t be any lumps when you’re done.” Jaime stirred dutifully, watching her transfer another tray of cookies to the rack to cool. She tapped a few of the cooled ones and nodded to herself. “Hand me a clean spoon, please.”

When Jaime turned back to her, spoon in hand, she was attaching a thin nozzle to a pastry bag. She peeked into the bowl to check his work and wrinkled her nose. Taking it from him, she whisked the icing briskly for another minute before she was satisfied. Jaime tried to sidle behind her again as she filled the bag with icing, but she elbowed him away. “Stop it. I need to concentrate.”

“Why don’t you let Tyrion decorate them. They’re his cookies.” He’d meant the suggestion in part out of consideration for their brother, who was already excluded from so much. To his regret, his voice sounded more like a petulant whine.

“Then they’ll look ugly.” She carefully drew buttons and a bow tie onto a smiling gingerbread man. He crossed and uncrossed his arms, waiting for her to notice his displeasure at being dismissed, but she didn’t look up. Taking a new tactic, he snatched the icing bag from her fingers. She grabbed at him and missed, hissing his name.

Holding the bag above her reach, he pressed into her, trapping her between his body and the counter. “This is our last chance while dad will be gone on this case. Come to me tonight,” Jaime murmured in her ear. Then he kissed her, hard and fierce, working their mouths together so she would remember how it felt to breathe the same air.

She nipped the corner of his mouth, hard enough to make him pull away from the hurt of it. “After I finish.”

“Yes?” He could feel his whole face light up, but he didn’t care.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I've never written this pairing before, so feedback is especially welcome!! If you want, you can follow my fangirling and admire pretty pictures with me on [tumblr](http://www.caesiamusa.tumblr.com).


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